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Sunday, June 21, 2015

Ziltoid the Omniscient

21 June 2015


Bench press 225x5, 245x5, 270 (5+) x 11 reps

Pump city.

Seated cable row 30 total reps

Incline DB flyes 3s x 10

Form was very poor, I just couldn't get both arms to press up at the same time for some reason. Will keep doing these to hopefully iron out some shoulder issues I've been having.

DB tricep extensions 1s x 15, then 3s x 10 heavy

DB curl 50 total reps

Tomorrow I'll try switching the pulls and squats round (i.e. pull before squat) because the pull weights are getting heavy. Will see how this works (or not).

9 comments:

Unknown said...

270*11 is pump city. X1 is my 1RM.

Fatman said...

Maybe I'll do paused reps from now on to cut down on the no. of reps. On the other hand, I'm not trying to improve my 1RM at this time, so maybe I should just keep pump city-ing.

SomeCowBoyGuy said...

Fatman, what does it mean when I fail my presses at the forehead? What should I do to get stronger from this point? Thx

Fatman said...

Do more volume with a lower weight.

You can train the OH press move often than, say, the bench press, because there is very little eccentric work involved. If I had a home gym, I'd load the bar with 75-80% of my 1RM and do 5-6 easy singles 4-5 days a week, as a mini-session or broken up throughout the day.

Some things you can also try:

- Focus on pressing the weight from bottom to lockout. This is often a problem for me. I blast the weight out of the rack position, then "forget" to keep pushing and it stalls and/or comes back down. The best way to learn this IMO is to practice the lift often and light (no grinds).

- Remember to "push your head through" once the bar is high enough. I read a cue for the OH press somewhere that went something like "open the window and look out".

Other than that I have no good advice. OH press for me is like the deadlift, I just come to the gym with no expectations and see how it goes (or doesn't) on a given day. Sometimes it's a PR, other times I can't even lift what I lifted last week/month.

SomeCowBoyGuy said...

Thanks Fatman. I appreciate the help. I did the 5 easy singles during my workout today. Do you have any ideas for a program that would help me get to a 185 press and 370 squat? I weigh 185. I can't tell if what I'm doing now is helping or not. It does feel like progress with weights is mind numbingly slow. I do enjoy my pump oriented workouts but the desire to be strong remains. Also, if you don't feel like answering don't worry, I'll go away.

Fatman said...

Lifting progress is fairly simple (albeit not easy). Basically you always start with the simplest program in existence (linear progression) and hammer it until it no longer produces gainz. Then you go one step more complicated (Greyskull or 5/3/1) and milk that step for gainz. Then when you're absolutely sure you've stalled you add some more complexity (Madcow or TM), etc., etc.

What sort of program are you following now (I know it's the 5 sets of 10, plus some triples and fives, but is that a specific template or just what you feel like)? Have you completed a simple linear progression in the past? What are your recently tested maxes right now?

SomeCowBoyGuy said...

Program now; I made it up. Basically I squat twice a week, press once a week, power clean once a week. Also accessories which are the 5x10s at 60-70% of the 3RM. I am trying to linearly progress once a week with squats by five pounds, and by 2.5 pounds per week on the other lifts.
I ran SS (3x5 add five pounds, squatting twice/week, deadlifting, bench, press once/week) for awhile. I got really good at stalling and resetting weights all the time. Basically SS got my lifts to where they are now, and this was over a year ago. (To be fair I have changed my squat form a bit, and that required a reset).
I ran 531 for 5 cycles and my progress was all over the map. I used STRSTD.com to get my template. My press went down. One week I would squat 250x4 on my one plus day, then enter in that rep total to get my new template, and wouldn't be able to hit the set of five the following week. This was quite common. (hope this makes sense)
My maxes now.
Press 150x1.
Bench 235x1
Squat 250x3, so maybe 265?? I can find out this weekend.
Deathlift - I have not deathlifted in months. I can find out this weekend.

Looking back at my logs SS got my bench to 185 and 531 got it to 245, to that progression seemed to work quite well. Of course this is the lift that I care the least about.
Squat stayed exactly the same. This is why I started squatting twice a week instead of deadlifting. I want to squat more, don't care about deadlift.
SS got my deadlift to 315 and 531 took it to 345. Pretty good I guess but not great over 4 months. Although if I say 30 pounds over 4 months that would be 90 pounds over a year which is real good I guess.
SS got my press to 165 and 531 took it to 150. Oops.
I guess looking back at all this 531 didn't work for my presses and squats, but worked well for benching and deadlifts.
Thanks Fatman. Stop engaging me whenever you want.


Anonymous said...

good job with 11 reps at 5+. impressive.

Fatman said...

I had a different experience with 5/3/1. Worked great for my squat and well for my bench, did almost nothing for my deathlift (I saw massive improvement in my repping ability and a 10 pound improvement in my max over 18 months). My OH press went up quite a bit, but that was the first time I'd trained it consistently, so it probably wasn't the program.

I think you can make solid gains on your lifts with SS, but gaining a large amount of (non-muscular) bodyweight seems to be a prerequisite for doing so. SS will probably not work if you're not ready and willing to get fat.

One thing that seems to stand out from what you wrote above is that you haven't really stuck with any one program for a while. Not saying that you should follow my example, but I ran 5/3/1 for a year and a half and have been following a modified Texas Method template for the past 2 years (recently I switched again because I'm trying to drop some bodyweight). Sticking with a mediocre program beats skipping between great programs any time.

Also I think you might be expecting a bit too much, too soon. 30 pounds on your DL over 4 months is great progress. Especially when that 30 lbs. is almost 10% of your previous max. That rate of progress wouldn't give you 90 pounds in 12 months - it would actually be more like 120 pounds. Which is unrealistic even for someone on the sauce. I once went two years without adding a pound to my pull, and I generally increase my 1RMs by 5-10 pounds per year, so like 1-2%. Keep the long term picture in mind and think about the numbers you'd like to hit in 2, 3 or 5 years' time.

My recommendation would be to try out one of the Lift-Run-Bang programs - I simply don't see how anyone could go wrong with those. They are great for lifters from beginner to advanced level and include enough muscle building work to indulge your inner bodybuilder. E-mail me at phatmanphorever at gmail dot com and I might be able to provide some other recommendations.